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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24794185">Timeless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomedship/pseuds/doomedship'>doomedship</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Good Doctor (TV 2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:47:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,423</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24794185</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomedship/pseuds/doomedship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, patients have a profound effect on him. This is one of those times. Neil/Claire, on not missing any more chances.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Claire Browne/Neil Melendez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>121</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Timeless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrestled with this for weeks and I'm still not sure about it, but I'm putting it out there anyway. Happy Thursday.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>...</p><p>These days, he finds it's always the paediatric patients that get to him most. </p><p>Specifically the ones he takes on with Claire, where she's the one holding tiny hands and smiling down into shy little faces while she tells them what's going to happen next. Figuring out a way to make even the most terrified of them smile back at her. </p><p>They always love her - that goes without saying. </p><p>(But then who doesn't. She's got so much compassion in her it makes the rest of them look like war criminals by comparison and sometimes he really just wants to drown himself in that kindness so he never has to wonder if the world is a decent place again.)</p><p>He's so often just left standing there like a complete idiot, unable to drag his eyes from her like there's nobody in the room but her. And lately it's because he's started picturing her with a kid in her arms who's got her curly hair and his brown eyes.</p><p>He's sure the parents must be starting to wonder, and he has to drag his eyes back to them and answer their questions, back to smart and professional and focused. But somehow his eyes always drift to her anyway, and then when she meets his eye over the top of a soft little toddler head with a fluffy teddy bear in her hands - yeah, it physically aches to look at her. </p><p>The thing that drives him crazy is that he doesn't know why it's suddenly such a big deal because it's her. He's always been fond of kids, he knows, and he's thought about having his own plenty of times. But not like this. </p><p>When he was with Jessica, it was a vague wish, not something he ever saw crystallising in front of his eyes the way it is now, at least not until that wish was crashing and burning in front of him. It had only ever been a distant hope for the future, an assumption, and now that it's gone he realises he doesn't even know how to picture that reality. Not really. </p><p>And with Audrey - well. He doesn't think he even thought about it once, it was all over and done with so quickly. A fleeting infatuation in a vulnerable time, never built to last, and the idea of kids and a future with her just doesn't seem to add up. He thinks she'd have laughed in his face at the very idea, too.  </p><p>But Claire. He's not even with her, he never has been, and yet he sees it playing out so clearly it's like he's seeing into a crystal ball, which is as absurd as it is seductive. That fact might have made him feel sordid, a lecherous boss eyeing up his subordinate, except for that it never does. It feels miles away from wrong whenever he's with her, and that's what makes it so much more confusing.</p><p>"I'm going to put a rush on Jake's test results," she says, looking up at him, and he shakes his head to clear the spiralling reverie.</p><p>"Right," he says, trying to sound in command of himself. "Good idea." </p><p>She looks at him a little bemused, so he just waves her on, shaking his head. He needs to get a grip, to stop thinking like this. She's not his to want, and she deserves better than to be thought of in this way, to be made into some far off fantasy he really can't explain. </p><p>Because she's always been at pains to say how platonic they are. </p><p>(<em>pla·ton·ic</em> (adj.) purely spiritual; free from sensual desire, especially in a relationship between two persons of the opposite sex. He almost laughs; the way they look at each other sometimes is sensuality itself. He can't deny the spiritual, though; his feelings for her are already on another plane.)</p><p>So he stuffs the thought of her and him away, and he pretends and pretends and pretends. But it's hard sometimes when she says things that throw his head straight back into a tailspin.</p><p>"Can you see me with kids?" she says one day, absent-mindedly. He tries not to look affected and shifts in his chair next to her by the MRI controls, swiveling left and right like a kid in the back of the class. She glances at him, and his mouth quirks into a half smile.</p><p>"I can see it," he says carefully, and she hums thoughtfully.</p><p>"I suppose I need to find somebody to have them with first," she says with a short laugh. </p><p>And he looks at her and sees it again, a future he should never have imagined. </p><p>"He'll be a lucky guy," he says, while his mind wanders to the many possible futures he'll never get to taste, and she smiles up at him without a clue what's going on behind his eyes. She ducks her head back to the monitor and he watches her, thoughtful and clever in the way she studies the screen. </p><p>He changes his mind then, and sees a child with those green eyes instead. </p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>In a few weeks, they get a new patient, paediatric again. This time cancer, and those always hit differently. </p><p>It's so perverse, to see it in a child. The slow moving self-destruction that justice should surely require to wait until a life has at least been halfway lived, but which reality never seems to get right. </p><p>It's terminal, a ten year old with Ewing's sarcoma, late stage. They're not going to fix her but if they get lucky they might buy her another few months. Her parents thank him a lot though he doesn't know why; whatever he gives them will never be enough.</p><p><br/>
...</p><p> </p><p><br/>
The girl is a thoughtful patient, wiser and more accepting of her fate than her years should allow, and in a twist that's both ironic and poignantly appropriate, her name is Hope. She's got a little sister, and the way she tries to be brave for her is achingly familiar to him. She acts like she's got all the answers, never lets her fear show through. </p><p>But the hard truth is this: Hope is dying. Each day she's in a little more pain and when he looks at her he thinks he can already see the whisper of the end about her. As he sits and looks at her scans he wonders how many hearts she's going to break when she goes.</p><p>He watches Claire with her, and that's heartbreaking in its own right. She's warm and she makes Hope laugh, and talks to her in a way that he knows neither he nor anybody else on the team would ever be able to do. She's just like that; she gets to the heart of people like nobody he's ever met, and she is the one who makes a dark room brighten just a little even in the lowest moments of pain and loss. </p><p>He catches Hope's eye one day while Claire's busy chatting to her as she's drawing blood, and he's a little flummoxed by the sudden flash of a smile he sees on her young face. There's a sweetness and a mischief that should be out of place in somebody wracked by six months of metastasising tumours and chemo that hasn't worked, but on her it somehow makes sense. She's caught him staring like a schoolboy at Claire, and for some reason that seems to amuse her.</p><p>(It <em>is</em> funny, though. He's a grown man the wrong side of forty and he's mooning after an unattainable woman like it's the first time he's ever heard the word infatuation. He'd laugh too, if it wasn't also so fucking tragic.)</p><p>He knows then that Hope Stanley is one of those patients whose memory will stay with him far longer than she does.</p><p>He walks by her room the day before her surgery, after visiting hours are over and she's by herself on the ward. He just stands and looks at her through the window, and wonders how life can be this unfair. </p><p>He expected her to be asleep by now but to his surprise she turns her head and sees him, and she smiles. She motions him to come in, so he does, though he doesn't really know why. It's hard to refuse anything to a dying child.</p><p>"I like to stay up when it's late," she tells him, when he asks her why she's awake. "I don't have to pretend."</p><p>"To your parents?" he asks, resting his hands on the rail at the end of her bed. </p><p>"To anyone," she answers plainly. "I want to think about the things I'll never get to do, and not have to pretend that I'm not sad."</p><p>He sits down in the chair beside her bed, nodding slowly. He can't presume to come anywhere close to knowing how she feels but he thinks he understands a little.</p><p>"I try to remember to tell my sister I love her every day," she says, turning her head to look at him. "Because soon I won't be able to." Her eyes are very blue and she's lost her eyebrows and her eyelashes, and she looks so very young to be speaking such ancient truths to him. </p><p>He thinks of his own sister then, and he feels a rush of guilt. He doesn't tell her nearly enough what she means to him.</p><p>"Are you thinking about the people you love?" Hope says, her eyelids flickering as if she's fighting sleep. </p><p>"Yeah," he says quietly, and he reaches out quietly to take the hand she's holding out to him. "I should tell them more often."</p><p>"If Dr Browne is one of them maybe you should tell her too," Hope murmurs. "Everyone is running out of time."</p><p>He looks down at her for a long moment, and he doesn't say anything but he nods, very slightly, looking down at her fragile, pale hand in his. </p><p>(He's held lots of people's hands as they're dying; it's nothing new. He wonders why he feels the spinning wheel of fortune so heavily this time, like the die somehow is being cast on what shape the rest of his life will take. He's meant to be the one comforting her, but somehow it feels like the other way round.)</p><p>Hope dies in three weeks' time, and in the end his heart is one that breaks for her too.</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>He rarely attends patients' funerals; if he did the unfortunate truth is he'd be dressed in black every other weekend, and several weekdays in between. </p><p>This is different though, and when Hope's mother asks if he wants to attend the memorial he says yes before he can really think about it. </p><p>Claire comes without judgment; she links her arm in his as they walk silently back to their cars afterwards, a light drizzle clinging to their skin as they part ways. </p><p>Something is shifting in the air, and Hope is right. Nobody knows how many more times they'll feel the rain land on their skin, or have somebody else's hand clutched tightly in theirs.</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p><br/>
Time passes.</p><p>He's not sure if Hope's case specifically has made him think more deeply on matters of life and death but he feels the pressure of time and mortality suddenly weighing down on him in a way it never has before. He thinks maybe it's to do with the way his life's been so at sea lately, how things he thought were constant ended up being so fleeting. How people he loved have come and gone.</p><p>Claire watches him when she thinks he's not looking, but he's always afraid to look back. </p><p>(Actually, he does look, but like her it's only when he thinks she can't see him; it's the hungry way his eyes follow her as she leaves a room, are drawn to her he moment she enters one. And sometimes, he sees her in the dead of night in his wildest dreams, but he can hardly count that.)</p><p>The words of a child dying of cancer float round and round in his head whenever he looks at Claire but this is an adult world, and he doesn't know how to make her simple truths make sense in it. </p><p>"You doing okay?" she asks him softly, as they leave the hospital together one night. He looks over at her and pauses, watching the way the flickering streetlamp casts a mix of light and shadow over her familiar face. It's beautiful - she always has been. </p><p>He longs then to reach out and hold onto her, in case he never gets the chance to, but like always his rational fears win out over his messy, too much invested heart. </p><p>"Yeah," he says, smiling at her in a way that he thinks must tell of love and regret intermixed, if only she knew to look for it. She waits, but he doesn't say anything more, and so she smiles, touches his elbow and heads for home, leaving him wondering how a fading ten year old seemed able to do more living in her short life than he can in all of his. </p><p>He decides to take some time off.</p><p>It's the first time he's done so in a long time, and he's got plenty of days stacked up. He makes plans to go stay out in a cabin in the woods, just him and an endless night sky for company. Seek some clarity in the silence and the solitude, and maybe find some peace, if such a thing can ever be available to him.</p><p>Claire stops by his office as he's packing his bag the night before he's due off. She stands in the doorway and watches him, a little solemn and still. She's wearing her coat so she must've been ready to go home, but she's made the effort to come up here to check on him before he leaves, and he feels a faint warmth flow through his veins at the thought. </p><p>"Going anywhere nice?" she asks, offering a simple smile, and he perches his weight on the edge of his desk. </p><p>"My uncle built a cabin in the woods, " he replies, rubbing the back of his head. "Near Mendocino. It's pretty remote, I thought I'd just switch off for a while."</p><p>She nods, and her expression is hard to decipher. Something she's holding back, but he can never tell what. </p><p>"Well, I hope you find what you're looking for," she says softly, and just for a second she reaches out and lays her hand on the crook of his elbow, a friendly gesture, but it feels so loaded and he can't stop himself. </p><p>Tentatively, he rests his hand over hers, and wonders whether she too can feel the inexplicable depth of meaning in that one small touch of skin on skin.</p><p>(<em>chem•is•try</em> (n.) the basic characteristics of a substance and the ways in which it reacts or combines with other substances. He doesn't think he needs a science to work out what's happening here.)</p><p>She holds his gaze for a long moment, green eyes bright and steady, and for a second he's got a wild urge to tell her to forget about work and the world and come out to the cabin with him, just the two of them, away from all the impossible choices that make up the fabric of their lives. </p><p>But his old friend reality sets in, and she slowly moves her hand back and gives him one last searching smile.</p><p>"I'll see you when you get back?" she says, and he inclines his head. </p><p>"Back before you know it."</p><p> </p><p>....</p><p> </p><p><br/>
The road is long and the landscape soon shifts from city streets to open wilderness. </p><p>His sleek black car is pretty out of place in the rustic woodland he ends up in, after a hard three hours of driving, but he ignores the dust and dirt. He's had the radio turned up high and he's drowning out his own thoughts, concentrating on the road and the music and not much else. For a while it's a relief. </p><p>He calls his sister on the way, and thinks briefly but vividly of Hope when he tells her he loves her before he hangs up.</p><p>(Claire's number is at the top of his speed dial; she doesn't know that, but it's true. It used to be Jessica, then Audrey, but he doesn't call either of them anymore, doesn't even text. He likes the way her name pops up the way she first entered it, just Claire, just herself, because nothing else is needed when it comes to her. Everybody else has always had a last name in his phone.)</p><p><br/>
...</p><p> </p><p>When the car falls silent in the middle of the redwood and he climbs out into the clean evening air, he stands still under the moonlight and thinks of home, and what he's left behind.</p><p>He's put so many miles between him and Claire, yet he finds her presence weighs just as steadily in his heart as when he's standing right beside her, a constancy he finds comforting and alarming in almost equal measure. A thing he learns then: some things are not dictated by space or distance, and no amount of running will change an irrefutable truth. </p><p>He lets himself into the cabin with a strange feeling of brooding preoccupation settling over him, a restlessness that he can't quite explain. He came here to clear his head of the confusion that's sprung up in everything he does back at St Bonaventure; now he wonders whether he's ready to confront whatever it is he finds in its place.</p><p>(It's falling for somebody, of course it's that, he's been here before but at the same time he never has; this hits different, feels different, and he's got no idea how to handle it.)</p><p>The cabin's lain unused for some time and it takes him a while to get it warmed up and habitable. When it's more or less acceptable he sits by the fireplace, and thinks briefly about calling Claire, for no other reason than that he suddenly misses her, but he shuts that notion down in a fit of frustration and tosses his phone onto the sofa. </p><p>Everybody is running out of time, he thinks to himself, and wonders just how true that is. </p><p>Then he remembers all that blue eyed mischief and a dying girl's final words to him, and he is stirred to pick up his phone again. He doesn't call but he taps out a message, just <em>made it here alive, if you don't hear from me I've been eaten by a bear,</em> and sends it before he can change his mind, the message pending for a while with his meagre one bar of signal.</p><p>She writes back almost immediately. <em>Missed you at work, if you don't hear from me I've got on the wrong side of Andrews - worse than a bear.</em></p><p>He laughs, and his brooding melancholy suddenly feels lessened; the quiet glow of the uncomplicated pleasure he associates with Claire seems a hell of a lot brighter with all that background noise suddenly removed. Talking to her is a remedy; until now he doesn't think he really realised how deeply that has always been true.</p><p><em>You'd like it out here</em>, he types. <em>All you'd need are the chickens and the dog.</em></p><p><em>On it</em>, she writes back. <em>For next time. </em><br/>
 <br/>
He smiles as he switches off the screen. It's a seductive image, her out here in the wild with him. And he's trying not to think too much about it but as he lies there he thinks it has the ring of promise about it; the suggestion of one day, maybe. </p><p>Because after all his running the truth is clearly this: however much he might try to keep himself distant, she is the one thing he doesn't want to run out of time for. </p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>The next day, he gets up early and does things outside, like chopping firewood and patching up the roof. </p><p>He rarely does anything like this at home, and he finds it's surprisingly appealing. The hours pass quickly and his body is pleasantly tired; he thinks he can understand why people pack it all in and live in the middle of nowhere. There's a simplistic satisfaction in getting a manual job done; even more so when he sends Claire a photo of the pile of neatly stacked logs outside the cabin late that evening, and she calls him a few minutes later. </p><p>He feels a quiet pleasure low in his abdomen as his finger slides the response to green.</p><p>"I thought you might be too off the grid for phonecalls," she says, and her soft voice in his ear is so startlingly intimate he feels the need to go inside, closing the door behind him, even though there's no one else for miles. </p><p>(Has she always had that breathy undertone, or is it just now, when she's talking to him? It makes his blood fire up - the way she exhales makes him picture her tangled up in his white sheets and nothing else.)</p><p>"Not quite," he replies, trying to keep a lid on the sudden jolt he feels at the sound of her voice. "How was work?" he asks, and she begins to tell him about the day she had arguing with Park over a surgical approach for Andrews, and somehow ending up heavily involved in Shaun's latest romantic disaster. </p><p>He sits back and listens, the familiarity of her voice easing over him like that feeling of warmth from the fireside, soothing and reassuring against the uneven cadence of the rest of his life. </p><p>"How's the cabin?" she asks, and he hears her rustling around in the background.</p><p>"Good. Quiet. No bears yet. What are you doing?" he asks, as the faint shuffling continues. </p><p>"Sorry. I'm just getting in bed-" he hears the vague sound of her settling herself onto a mattress and the rasp of moving sheets, and in listening to her he feels the flicker of something dangerous catching alight inside him. </p><p>(Yeah, that's what he means, her voice down the line makes him feel like he's striding right into her bedroom, like he's already got his hands all over her bare skin and he's moments away from losing himself inside her; he wonders how bad it is that he wishes that were true.)</p><p>He doesn't know if it's the image of her dressing for bed or the intimacy of talking to her while she's there but it's somehow a more powerful and charged moment than he could ever have anticipated, standing there with his phone to his ear and his breath catching in his chest as he listens to her. </p><p>He inhales slowly, and rubs the back of his head as he crosses over to his own bed, sinking down into it with a strange sense of being caught totally off balance as he leans back and stares up at the ceiling. </p><p>"What did you do tonight?" he asks, just wanting to hear her again, her voice as addictive as her presence, and she hums softly into the phone. His pulse feels oddly fast against his chest. </p><p>"Morgan wanted to get drinks," she says. "We went to that bar on fifth, but it was rowdy as. I left after one round, I think I'm getting old."</p><p>"What does that make me?" he asks dryly, and she laughs. There's a pause before she speaks again. </p><p>"Hey. Is it weird that I called you? I don't know, I just wanted to hear your voice."</p><p>"No," he says, and he can't stop the ghost of a smile at the sudden self-consciousness in the way she says it. "No. I'm glad you did."</p><p>"Good," she says, and he can hear the drowsy satisfaction in her voice, can almost picture her as if she's lying right there next to him, her eyes closing as she curls up under the covers and lets her breathing slow.</p><p>"You should get some sleep," he says softly, shutting his eyes briefly against the barrage of imagined details he has no business seeing, and she gives a small hum of assent.</p><p>"Hmm. Okay," she says, sounding a lot like she's trying not to yawn. "Call me tomorrow? I'm in all evening."</p><p>"You got it," he replies, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "Goodnight, Claire."</p><p>"Goodnight," she replies, and he hears her long exhale before she cuts the line, and he's left staring up at his ceiling with sleep suddenly the furthest thing from his mind. </p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p><br/>
The next day dawns a bit misty, but pale sunshine lights the morning and promises clear skies later.</p><p>At around noon he gets a call, which surprises him, and he has to scramble for his phone because he fell asleep with it in his hand after talking to Claire and it's still lost somewhere in the bedclothes.</p><p>He's surprised to see her name on the screen and answers immediately with a sense of trepidation; she's meant to be at work and this can't be a leisurely call. </p><p>"Hey," he says quickly. "What's up?"</p><p>"Hi," she answers, and she sounds like she's moving around. There's background noise, and it doesn't sound like the hospital. </p><p>"Claire?" he says, when she doesn't say anything else. "Are you okay? What's going on?"</p><p>"I'm okay," she says, and he relaxes slightly, but he's still rooted to the spot and tense, waiting for the explanation. Something has spooked her, and he doesn't like it one bit.</p><p>"Someone pulled a gun in the ER," she says, all in a rush, and he's left astonished, horrified, a million what ifs running through his head at that one simple statement. For a minute he thinks he knows pure terror.</p><p>"What? Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?"</p><p>"One of the nurses- she's okay though. Security tackled the guy. I just- it was really scary, Neil," she says softly. His hand grips the air uselessly; he wants to be there beside her more than he can express, but he's got no way of achieving that in under three hours. He presses a hand to his forehead.</p><p>"God- I'm sorry, Claire. I can't believe... where are you now? Are you somewhere safe?" He doesn't like the thought of her walking around by herself; suddenly the thought of every street corner he's not rounding with her seems like a risk he's not willing to take. </p><p>"I'm just walking to my apartment now," she says. "Dr Lim sent me home. I didn't want to, but-"</p><p>"She was right to," he says firmly. He breathes in slowly, thinking fast. "It's Friday tomorrow. Can you get out of your shift?" </p><p>"What? I don't know, maybe. Why?"</p><p>"Drive up here for the weekend," he says, and the words are out before he can think about them, about what he's actually saying. "I don't want you to be alone. And it's safe out here. No crazies with guns, I promise."</p><p>He can feel the hesitation down the line; the background noise has stopped and he imagines she's now in her apartment, deliberating. He can almost see the careful expression, her teeth worrying her lower lip and her brow furrowing like it always does when she's not sure.</p><p>"Okay," she says softly, and it carries a rush of anticipation mixed with relief and something harder to put a label on through his veins. </p><p>(Except it's not that hard: <em>de•sire</em> (n.) a longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction; hunger. Obviously, he wants her; he wants her close. He always does.)</p><p>He tells her to call him when she gets on the road, and she does. He winds up talking to her the entire drive, stretched out on his back in the long grass and watching the sun filter through the trees. They don't talk the whole time; silence is comfortable between them, until there's something more to say. It's just peaceful, reassuring to have her right there on the line, so he knows that she's okay. </p><p>Then around four her car pulls up, and suddenly his heart is racing.</p><p>He walks over, waits for her to step out, to come to him, and then he's barely breathing as she takes a few steps towards him and just collides with his waiting embrace, safe and alive and utterly herself as she buries her face in his shoulder.</p><p>He's held her before, but not a lot of times, and never so close as this. It feels like putting the world back in its proper orbit, like something that was off is now put right. </p><p>"I'm glad you came. I missed you," he says, which isn't really what he was planning to say, but he stands by it, and he feels her nod into his shoulder. </p><p>"Me too. A lot. Thanks for letting me come," she says, and she sounds choked up and emotional.</p><p>He takes her hand and her bag and leads her inside. </p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>It turns out to be so easy with her, yet incredibly hard too. </p><p>He's kind of always known that they're a natural fit; the way they work together like clockwork in the OR is a clear giveaway. Not all residents are like that. In fact, many are the opposite, and he's glad to see the back of them. But with her he's never really had to instruct her on his preferences, she just knows. She gets him, like he's pretty sure he gets her.<br/>
 <br/>
And out here with nothing to distract him he realises how perfect the chemistry really is, how they're always so in sync. It's somehow like he's been living with her for years, even whilst it's brand new and strange. </p><p>The hard part, therefore, is keeping his thoughts in check; their close proximity makes even clearer the direction his subconscious is taking his thoughts. Maybe he underestimated how much the closeness would affect him, or maybe he just overestimated his self-control.</p><p>He's washing dishes and she's drying, an easy quiet between them as he hands her plates and cups. She's calmer now; they took a long walk through the forest, had dinner, settled in for the night, and she seems relaxed and comfortable. She hasn't said much about the incident at the hospital but he makes sure to tell her if she wants to talk about it, he's ready to listen.</p><p>She doesn't say anything, but she slides her arms around him again, and he thinks he could get used to this newfound physical closeness really fast. </p><p>He puts her in the one bedroom, and despite her protests, says he'll take the couch. He rolls his eyes at her when she says she's not taking his bed; he tells her he's not going to accept any other outcome so she might as well give up now. </p><p>She seems reluctant, but she eventually sets her bag down in the room, and follows him back out where he sets them up on the couch with an old movie. It's literally a VCR hooked up to the world's oldest TV set, but the fuzzy background noise does the trick; she's curled up under a blanket with her head on his shoulder within half an hour. </p><p>She's full on asleep by the halfway point, and he glances down at her with an almost painful longing in his chest suddenly blooming out of nowhere.<br/>
 <br/>
(<em>Love</em> (n.) a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person; a person who is beloved of another. In truth, he just wants her to be happy, to be safe; he's not actually sure there's anything he wouldn't do for her.)</p><p>He brushes her hair out of her face and she stirs but doesn't wake; he lets her sleep until the credits roll, and then he switches off the TV set with a click that this time does rouse her. She blinks up at him, once, twice, remembering where she is and then she smiles slowly, and he can feel his pulse jumping in his veins.</p><p>There are a lot of things he wants to do in that moment; none of them are impulses he will entertain when she's just had a traumatic day, when she's tired and vulnerable and she really needs to sleep it all off. He's far gone but he's not that guy; he smiles, musters his will, and gets up before he really does cross a line. </p><p>"Go get some sleep," he says, and she looks a little caught, like there's something she wants to stay and say, but she's afraid to, and God if he doesn't know how that feels. Against better judgment he leans in and kisses her forehead once, his hand on the back of her head, and her eyes flicker shut just briefly. </p><p>"Okay," she says unsteadily, when he nudges her gently with a touch on the small of her back, the signal quiet but clear. "Thanks for today," she says quietly. "Things always feel a lot better because of you."</p><p>He stays awake for a long time that night, wondering how much longer he can realistically hold out before the dam breaks. </p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>He checks on her in the morning, and finds her curled up on her side facing the door, still dead to the world, despite the sun streaming in through the window. She's half covered by the sheets, but he can see one bare thigh stretching out and that's when he stops looking; anything else is asking for trouble. </p><p>He heads to the tiny kitchen instead to put some water on for coffee, and he's just thinking about making breakfast as well when he glances up and sees her padding into the kitchen, barefoot and wearing the shorts she was sleeping in. She's thrown a baggy sweater over the top but it's still more bare skin than he's used to seeing on her and it takes a lot of effort not to stare.</p><p>(Honestly, he can't remember if she's always looked this appealing. He doesn't really know how he's managed to keep from pinning her against the nearest wall in the hospital all these years if so. She's pretty fucking breathtaking and it just isn't fair that she's off limits; he wonders if that actually makes him want her more.)</p><p>"Sleep okay?" he asks with a smile, handing her a coffee mug. She sighs contentedly as she sips. </p><p>"Oh, like a log," she answers. "You were right, it's so peaceful out here. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep after yesterday but I was completely out."</p><p>He's watching the way the sunlight plays off her curly hair and paints it gold; it's hard to focus and she gives him a quizzical look when he's quiet and staring for too long. He smiles and shakes his head to clear it, suggesting eggs for breakfast, and he shoves his own rapidly spiralling thoughts aside. He's <em>not</em> a selfish man, and he'll give her whatever she needs, in her own time. </p><p>So they spend the day hiking, climbing, exploring. It's too cold to swim but she ditches shoes and socks and puts her bare toes in the lake, and laughs and shouts when he splashes water at her. </p><p>He feels twenty years younger when she chases him through the trees in outrage, with mud splashed across her cheek that might have got there because of him, accidentally on purpose, and in the end he lets her catch him, purely to indulge the feeling of her tackling him around the waist and clinging, her body warm on his as he catches her and swings her around. </p><p>He's pretty sure he's never felt this free before.</p><p>He lets her take the first shower when they get in; it's only fair since he's most of the reason she needs one. While she's in there he tries not to picture her in it, and not that successfully. He's a decent guy, but he's not a saint, and she's not exactly helping, either, when she comes out in a towel and saunters through to the bedroom like she owns the place. She's tiny and somehow still has legs for days, and it is getting distracting as hell.</p><p>He cuts vegetables for dinner, and keeps his mouth shut, even as he wonders to what extent she knows the effect her proximity is having. She surely can't be completely oblivious.</p><p>He can't sleep a wink later that night, turning over on the couch and staring up at the ceiling as if the answer to his problems will somehow appear written in the old beams his uncle left behind. It doesn't, and he's left with the frustrating, white-hot feeling that's been growing in the pit of his stomach for weeks; it's reaching a fever pitch and he doesn't dare to think about what it means, refuses to put a name to it.</p><p>(<em>a•rous•al</em> (v.) the action or fact of causing strong feelings, emotions, or response; the feeling of sexual desire. Sometimes he wakes up so hard thinking of her and it's not something he can ignore anymore. For a while now she's been the only person he thinks of when he's getting himself off; he wonders what she'd think of him if she knew that.)</p><p>He gets himself an ice cold glass of water in the kitchen, tries to calm his racing thoughts as he wanders back and sits down on his makeshift bed. He assumes she's already asleep, and he's so preoccupied he never hears the bedroom door open. </p><p>He jumps when he sees her, hovering at the end of the couch with a nervousness he can't quite pin down. </p><p>"Hey," he says, surprised. "You're up."</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>She doesn't say anything at first, just looks at him in the darkened room with moonlight spilling through the open curtains and lighting up every beautiful line of her, so familiar and yet still so new to him.</p><p>His heart is already leaping; he's getting ahead of himself, but how can he not when she's looking at him like that? There's not much else to read into a look as sultry and wanting as that and god, yes, it's what he wants her to mean, desperately.</p><p>But he gives one last attempt to restore the normal order of things. </p><p>"Are you okay?" he asks, and she finally smiles, the tension receding but only a touch, and then she's moving round to stand in front of him, almost between his parted thighs, all loose hair and bare skin and it's amazing how he suddenly forgets how to breathe.</p><p>"Yes," she whispers. "I'm okay. But it's not enough. I want more," she says, and her words are intoxicating; he's losing all semblance of control and it can't happen fast enough.</p><p>He should stop her, maybe, as she puts her hands on his shoulders and slides herself into his lap, his lap where the evidence of his receptiveness is becoming more noticeable by the second, but he definitely doesn't. What he actually does is sit back further so she has space to kneel over him, her thighs on either side of his, while he slides his all too willing arms up around her body in the way he's been dying to do for weeks. </p><p>She's wearing shorts and a vest and by the feel of it nothing else, and he's instantly hard and wanting as he sits there with his arms full of her and her incredible warmth, her body wrapping all around him as she takes a deep breath in the second before she presses her lips to his. There's something buried inside him that's chaotic in its triumph, a surge of euphoria and lust and unrelenting reckless love unfolding at breakneck speed as he leans into her, his hand tangling in her hair as she brushes her tongue against his.  </p><p>(<em>ec•sta•sy</em> (n.) an overpowering emotion or exaltation; a state of sudden, intense feeling; mental transport or rapture from the contemplation of divine things. He thinks divinity is about right; if there is a god then this is surely his masterpiece.)</p><p>"Do you want this?" she manages to say, pulling back as his lips chase her and land at her throat instead. "Tell me- I need you to say it."</p><p>"Claire, yes," he mumbles, biting down on the skin above her collarbone. "I want you. I love you."</p><p>She stills suddenly; he feels it under his fingertips, and draws back, acutely aware of the magnitude of what he's telling her. He looks up at her, and she is inscrutable, her fingers still resting on his shoulders but her face perfectly still. </p><p>"Do you mean that?" she asks, and he's taken aback. She's doubting his feelings - it's so inconceivable he feels like laughing. There's nothing in the world that seems more obvious to him; hasn't he told her that before? But no, he supposes he hasn't, the fool he is.</p><p>"Yes," he says, his hand going to her cheek. "Yes, of course."</p><p>"I love you too," she says quietly, and then he's lost. He pulls her or maybe she presses him back down against the couch and she tugs her shirt off in one swift move. Anticipation is chasing through his veins and reverberating in his entire consciousness and he can't really think of anything except the way she tastes, and how much he wants her, right now and always, every single time.</p><p>It's hard to properly appreciate the significance of that joint confession, because her hands are sliding boldly down to his waistband and palming against him firmly; his eyes close hard as he lets himself press into her touch and his chest tightens so much it's almost a physical ache. </p><p>He's going to have to revisit what just passed between them, obviously, but there are a few things he needs to do first. He thinks about letting it happen here, but the couch is small and he wants the space to spread her out, to appreciate every single inch of her like she deserves, so he sits up with her still in his arms, his lips warring with hers.</p><p>He puts both hands under her, her arms automatically twining round his neck, and she's just a little surprised when he stands and moves them to the bedroom, but she tightens her legs around him and breathes out a laugh.</p><p>(Yes, he thinks. Yes and yes and yes and yes.)</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>He delights in her in a way that he can hardly put into words.</p><p>They're so tangled up in each other before her back even hits the mattress that he's barely processing the fact that this is really going to happen, that after years of distant flirtation giving way to outright temptation, they're finally going to take this leap.</p><p>He looks down at her after he's placed her on the bed and it's like every fantasy he's ever entertained coming true, the way she props herself up on her elbows and parts her lips as she waits for him to come down to her. He pauses to shed his t-shirt before he sinks down and captures her lips again, sliding his body over hers with a low sound of satisfaction at the friction it creates.</p><p>She's threading her hands through his hair, tugging gently, and she's already making breathless little noises under him as he runs his hands over her sides, her breasts, enjoying what he's only ever dared to imagine lies under her scrubs and sensible blouses in the dead of night when he's completely alone. He can't stop the way he's murmuring all of this to her either; she's so breathtaking he just thinks she has to know, and the way she breathes his name when he tells her that with his lips pressed against her bare stomach is all the encouragement he needs. </p><p>He tugs her shorts off easily; he was right in that there's nothing underneath and she's suddenly lying there bare before him, and he feels like he could stop and observe and marvel at how fucking incredible she is for days and never get bored. But <em>she</em> might, and her restless movements remind him that he's got other things to attend to. He smiles as he slides his hands back down her body, waits for her to lead him, and follows her cue as she parts her thighs and lets him glide his fingers against the delicious slick heat in between. </p><p>She's not patient; he can feel in the way her hips rise and her muscles tighten around his fingers that she's wound up tight tonight, already flushed and breathless when she opens her eyes and looks up at him. He wonders how long she'd been lying there thinking about this, and leans down to kiss her while he slowly works her body to a fever pitch.</p><p>"Please- I need-," she starts, after he's coaxed her close and then backed off a frustrating number of times, her voice thready and the sentence left ragged and unfinished. He feels the hot tightening in his belly as she lays back, her chest rising and falling with her rapid breaths, and then he can't take it either.</p><p>He sheds his boxers and returns to her, settling between her parted thighs like he was always meant to wind up there. He watches her face as he lines them up, hot and hard and at the very edge of his fraying control, and he waits only for her breathy <em>please, yes</em>, before he slides effortlessly home.</p><p>It's a strange feeling he gets, like a realisation that he's been desperately missing this all along, even though until this moment it was something he'd never had. He doesn't mean the physicality of being with her, though the sensation is reason enough to drop to his knees. It's more the knowledge that it's her, it's <em>Claire</em>, warm and vibrant and arching her back so beautifully under him; all of that is what truly does him in.</p><p>He starts moving in her like his life depends on it; he watches her closely and finds the rhythm she likes that makes her bite down on her lip before she gasps out his name. When he finds it he chases that tempo ruthlessly to a soaring, stunning crescendo that leaves her muscles tightening desperately around him as she pants how much she loves this, loves him, that nobody else has ever come close.</p><p>And if the feel of her, hot and tangled with her legs crossed over him and her hips rising up to meet his every thrust wasn't enough to undo him, then her unrestrained, breathless cries as she finds her release under him would certainly be his end. </p><p>His body is suffused by a wild surge of pleasure; every muscle in him goes taut as he follows closely behind her, his rhythm disappearing as he comes harder than he has in years, her name falling from his lips in a litany as he presses his lips shakily to her temple. </p><p>After, she holds him tight against her as he blinks his world back into focus, everything seeming too bright and shimmering as his body rests heavy and exhausted over hers. She kisses his forehead and he sighs; finally, he's stopped missing all his chances to tell her that she's everything.</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>"When did you realise?"</p><p>They're lying together in bed the morning after, the cool air drifting in through the open window and lighting the world up in bright, cleansing white. The sheet is partly draped over them but she's mostly uncovered, her skin still warm and slick. He takes every opportunity he gets to run his hands over her body, doesn't know how long this moment will last, and vows to remember every second.</p><p>He's hazy, postcoital and slow after waking up to her body pressed over his, and it takes him a while to piece together what she's asking. </p><p>"About... this? Us?" he asks, forcing his brain into gear. At her quiet yeah, he drops his head to kiss her and inhales while he thinks.</p><p>"I don't know when," he says honestly. "But I know that a sick ten year old kid saw it a mile off, so I'm going to put my money on a while," he admits. She turns her head. </p><p>"Hope Stanley?" she asks.</p><p>"Yeah," he says, and he's suddenly cut through with a flicker of pain as he pictures bright blue eyes, no less alive for the passing of time since he saw them. "She told me I should tell you how I felt," he says softly, running his hand in gentle lines up and down her hip. She turns over in his arms.</p><p>"I knew she meant something to you," she says, cushioning her head on her hand. "I just didn't know what was on your mind after she died. I thought it was that we couldn't save her."</p><p>He shrugs, a little self conscious. </p><p>"Not really. She was ready to go, in the end. It was that I couldn't do what she managed to do despite everything, and go after the things that were important. To her, it was simple. I made it complicated," he says. He studies her face, each tiny detail, committing her to memory in this light. "Maybe it doesn't have to be."</p><p>"Even if it is," she says, after she thinks about it. "Isn't it worth it? You never know how long you've got. I remembered that the other day, at the hospital. It's why I called you as soon as I could."</p><p>He smiles a strange, contemplative smile. </p><p>"You were thinking about us doing this?" he asks, his arm heavy over her waist.</p><p>"I might have hoped," she says, laughing slightly. "But I really just wanted to see you. And make sure you knew how much you meant to me."</p><p>He kisses her again, long and slow. </p><p>They're a long way from home and there's a whole lot waiting for them when they get back. But looking at her there in the daylight he's waking up to a whole new existence; he knows he's not going to let this slip through his fingers. </p><p>He promised a dying child, once. </p><p>And now he promises Claire, emphatic and more certain than he has ever been, that this is it, this is them, and this is maybe what they've always been.</p><p>(<em>p</em><em>er•fec•tion</em> (n.) the state of being complete and correct in every way.)</p><p> </p>
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